Whats the point in hunting nazi war criminals anymore?

I was reading through a handful of news stories earlier on about a 97 year old WWII war criminal who was arrested earlier this year, that really got me thinking. What's the point in continuing to hunt down nazi's more than 60 years after their crimes were committed when so many are either dead or else in their final years? It just seems like a huge waste of time, money and general resources.
Just curious to see what others have to say on the matter?

I sort of see what your saying about why now 67 years after the war why are we still going after elderly nazi war criminals but the fact is that whilst time has passed the fact is that the crimes commited are still truely attroucious and persicutable and whilst it may seem wrong to put people on trial in there 80s and 90s they are now so rare but should still be tried for such horrific crimes even so long after the event

I think it's worth hunting down war criminals especially if they were nazi's at death camps.

That said, I love Stephen King's "Apt Pupil". I don't think I read the end of the book for whatever reason and the movie wasn't as good as the book. Some of the book had really weird/sick visuals though.

Without doing much research at all, I would assume we are spending too much time, money, and effort hunting them down, BUT we should not stop entirely. The original reason for it, back when the war had only been over for a short time, hunting the Nazi's down was vital, partially because it eliminated the threat of a resurgence of Nazi related activity that could have led to a WWIII. Though now the hunting, arguable, could only suffice to be little victories to boost morale, reminders that it happened and never should happen, the moral reason of "no matter their age they did something awful (which they did, I'm not going to argue about that, but if anyone wants to step up and defend the Nazi's, then by all means I'll argue about how the Nazi's were awful), and many other supposed reasons.

I would purpose that we lessen the funding and man power, but continue the search in a much more relaxed fashion. If we catch a few, hooray, less Nazi's in the world. If we don't, like someone said, they'll be dead soon anyways.

As for Nazi war criminals, you have to understand the history behind the acts, and the history and determination of the Jewish people. This is not something that they can let go unpunished as long as there is one war criminal left. Historically, the crimes were so heinous, and millions of Jews died, as well as other groups of people. Their blood cries out for justice, and that's what it is all about. Justice. I had the privileged of talking to an elderly woman who agreed to talk to our church youth group. She was a survivor of a Nazi prison camp. I remember to this day, her showing us the number which was tattooed on her arm. Everyone who went into the concentration camps was tattooed, instantly becoming an article of property. When the property had outlived its usefulness, it was destroyed.

Their blood still cries out, and it should make us think as to how we treat all people, whether they are terrorists, criminals, murderers, or anyone else who has taken that which never belonged to them. Though we want to hurt them, it is important that we remain above the violence they inflicted on us, less we become like them. If that happens, civilization collapses. Let the instruments of the courts and the penal system handle them, as they can never be free to hurt others, ever again.

Last edited by Trevor; 16-Sep-2012 at 04:50.
Reason: Split post topics to match their respective threads.